Monday, July 30, 2012

Details

James Varney reports that the Falcons refused to allow their logo and images to be included in a “Rebirth’’ statue of Steve Gleason that was unveiled outside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Friday. The statue captures a classic moment in Saints history.

It portrays Gleason’s crucial block of a punt in the first game the
Saints played in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. The 2006 game
was against the Falcons and Gleason blocked Michael Koenen’s punt.

Okay so maybe they're not actually being total dicks about this. It's probably some kind of complicated trademark issue involving the league and whether or not anybody can sell a "Who Dat" T-shirt or something. Let's ask them. They'll tell us.

"The first thing that happens in a request for marks is that it has to go
to the league because we don’t own the marks,’’ (Falcons President Rich) McKay told ESPN.com.
“The league does for anything outside of our market. When they brought
it to us, we discussed it with them and we came to the conclusion that,
obviously the fact they're honoring the moment is fantastic. We were all
there. It was an incredible moment for the city. It was not something
that we wanted to memorialize the game. So we kind of looked at it as
though we didn’t want necessarily a statue in front of the building that
had our marks. Albeit, we all understand how important the moment was
for the city and what they had gone through. We all lived in that moment
and it was a pretty special thing. Even losing, it was still a pretty
special thing. But it was just something that when we talked to the
league about it, we said we didn’t think it was appropriate to put the
marks on it. Everybody knew what the game was. Everybody knew what the
moment was."

ATLANTA -- The scene was one of celebration, New Orleans Saints players dancing and taking pictures on the Atlanta Falcons logo late Monday night at the Georgia Dome, in uniform no less.
As they ran back into the tunnel, pictures taken, dances
completed, smiles wide, I asked one of the players what that was
all about.

Another great moment in Saints-Falcons history that someone should probably memorialize. If we can get this statue commissioned, I'd chip in to have it installed outside the Georgia Dome somewhere. We can put it right next to the one commemorating those two points the Falcons scored during the playoffs last year.